


only villains when we touch

by fawnlike (amainiris)



Series: all you never gave [1]
Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Asexuality Spectrum, Debts Paid, Guilt, Loneliness, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-15
Updated: 2019-10-15
Packaged: 2020-12-16 14:09:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21037475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amainiris/pseuds/fawnlike
Summary: It starts simply, easily, effortless in the way that these things do: too much whiskey, too much conversation, the lights as dim as Hannibal’s eyes. The darkness is poignant, the heat is rising to the surface of Will’s skin, and he knows it’s the booze, he knows it’s nothing close to desire, but Will owes him, he owes him that much.And so when Hannibal reaches for him he doesn’t pull away, doesn’t resist, though the inside of him is numb, worse than numb--deadened, buried like the victims Hannibal captures and kills and consumes.





	only villains when we touch

They love each other in all the wrong ways.

And maybe love is the wrong word for it, Will thinks; maybe all they have is the ache, the anticipation, everything around it but the emotion itself. 

They harm one another not with impact but with distance. Hannibal carves his kills, dismembers the bodies, disposes of them like the waste he believes them to be. Will’s witnessed it; sometimes, he marvels at how many ways there are to die.

Almost as many ways as there are to live.

It starts simply, easily, effortless in the way that these things are: too much whiskey, too much conversation, the lights as dim as Hannibal’s eyes. The darkness is poignant, the heat is rising to the surface of Will’s skin, and he knows it’s the booze, he knows it’s nothing close to desire, but Will owes him, he owes him that much.

And so when Hannibal reaches for him he doesn’t pull away, doesn’t resist, though the inside of him is numb, worse than numb--deadened, buried alive like the bodies Hannibal captures and kills and consumes.

The kiss isn’t unpleasant, and nor is the skim of fingertips over his collarbone, butterfly-light, or the way Hannibal’s hands trail down his chest. They fall into one another’s rhythm, like they have dozens of times before, except now it’s sex, now it’s something unfamiliar, now it’s the thing inside of Will that makes him swear he's broken.

He takes a breath and it seems to fill his entire body; their heartbeats echo against one another’s, doubled between their rib cages, erratic for different reasons entirely.

_ You have no idea, _ Will thinks, _ how badly I want to want you. _

Love simply isn't enough.

That first kiss gutters down to nothingness like a candle; but then Hannibal comes alive, moving forward, pinning Will against the wall with unusual force, and Will lets him do it. Teeth on his throat, a tongue in his mouth, and Will’s stunned, because he’s slept with women and felt nothing, nothing, but he’d thought--he’d _hoped_\--that with Hannibal it would be different. Easier.

It isn't.

They fuck. Hannibal is as gentle as he can bear to be, gentler, Will thinks, then he’d likely been with other men and women--but maybe Will's just flattering himself. He has the tendency to do that, after all.

And when Hannibal kneels to take him into his mouth, Will’s body reacts, but nothing else does.

Yet he gives in, time and time again, because he owes him, because he loves him. _ It’s not your fault you are the way you are, _ Will tells himself-- _ just like it’s not Hannibal’s fault that he's become who he's become. _

There's no use in casting blame, not anymore.

Will begins to spend more nights alone, to drink more than three fingers of whiskey at a time, to torture himself with the inability to _ feel. _A void is a lack: how, then, are there so many different ways to want? It’s impossible to tell whether he’s trying to numb himself or to feel something through that numbness, that queer absence, the lack that is so blatantly consuming that it becomes the oblivion of overstimulation. As the spring light falls on his skin it paints his arms honey-gold; at night, he wanders in the fields, alone, craving everything about Hannibal save for his touch.

There’s a pattern, Will begins to see, always oh-so-good at detecting patterns. Killing doesn’t sate Hannibal, not for long, but something in their exhausted groans after sex, the slap of palms on flesh, heated sighs, elicits a sense of peace in him that nothing else seems to.

It’s a debt paid, Will thinks to himself, and a bargain well-struck, even if neither of them fully comprehend the price.


End file.
